South Mill District

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

South District Mill is an awesome new short from the creative mind of Joe Meredith. You probably know Joe from his art works from various Underground films from the past few years. Along with that his own creative ventures in art as well. Also he has been producing a series of sorts here at Extreme Horror Cinema that I rather enjoyed.

Along for the ride is Joe’s lovely wife Cidney Meredith and Toby Johansen.

Joe stars as Drennan as he wanders the wastelands of South District Mill a decade after a war between humans and an alien invader.

Now a new menace has evolved. EonCorp and their experimentation of Alien and Human DNA, of placing spiders being laced within the victim to hollow out their bodies to then allowed to re-generate.

Toby portrays one of these scientist working on this nefarious project.

Cidney is another survivor of experimentation.

Some of the special effects were supplied by none other than James Bell. All the gang involved in the short with some great special effects. Especially the stop motion animation of the spiders. Loved this and was close to my own heart as something I want to create myself. If I can do this half as good as these guys I would be more than happy!

We get some nice bloody effects of head removals of cadavers along with other stuff you need to see. It is wonderful and the bloodiness looks great. Spiders are awesome, coming out of heads and what not. Spider with the human face. Feelings of alien~ness and bizarro experimentation. Lots of talent abound these guys!

All were perfect with their characterisations! Being a short film there is only a certain amount of time to dig in to portray each persona.

Have to state this here but was about time we got to see Toby Johansen up on the screen again after his Hacksaw: Documentary of a Psycho Killer and Backyard Vampire. He has some real talent that needs to be seen on screen!

That goes for Joe Meredith and Cidney. Both have a tonne of talent we need to see way more of. Both portraying of farther characters but also for Joe’s eye for the scenes and scenery. Loved what we got!

South District Mill I got to experience was a rougher cut that Joe stated needed some work on the soundtrack and visuals. Personally I felt it was a finished experience. So a excited to see what the final cut looks like. With the use of talented special effects art and stop motion animation the guys create a real feel of sci fi horror that has been described as very Cronenberg~ian. With the short time a feel of a post war desolation vibe is created. Of the unknown, what is out there…and within!